Former North Carolina Poet Laureate Shelby Stephenson lives on the same plot of land in Eastern North Carolina where he was born, across the road from his family cemetery that includes the unmarked graves of slaves, some he has come to know through documents and stories handed down through the generations. In Slavery and Freedom on Paul's Hill, Stephenson shares family stories and history while he struggles to understand and come to terms with a family past that incudes owning other human beings, including July the Slave Girl, whose story haunts him to this day.